Unfortunately, with something this size there are inevitably some folks who were left out in the cold when the new year turns over. It's time to start taking care of those folks:WHAT TO DO IF YOU HAVE NOT RECEIVED YOUR GIFT YET:

We are collecting a list of users who have not received a gift yet here: BGG Secret Santa - No Gift Yet - please fill out that form with your BGG Username and the country you live in.

Our first step is to find out what happened with your Santa. In most cases packages were either sent late or haven't been sent yet but are on their way soon.

Failing that, we will set you up with a replacement Santa. Hang in there - we'll take care of you!

WHAT TO DO IF YOU WANT TO HELP OUT SOMEONE WHO'S SANTA DISAPPEARED:

We already have quite a few volunteers, but I always prefer to have more volunteers than I need. If you've already volunteered, or you are thinking about volunteering now - THANK YOU THANK YOU THANK YOU! Secret Santa wouldn't run nearly as smoothly if it weren't for the safety net you provide!

If you've already signed up as a Give Only Santa when the exchange began, then you are already on the list of awesome folks!

If you want to join the awesome folks list, sign-up to volunteer as a Replacement Santa here: Update - the response has been overwhelming! I think I have more than enough people currently, so I've closed off the sign-up for this. Thanks - you all rock!

For those curious, there are a number of reasons why a Santa might not follow through. Most of the time it involves something sucky that came up in real life that took precedent over an internet gift exchange. That's understandable, and we can make accommodations to make up for their lack of participation in such situations.

In the unfortunate circumstance that someone fails to make any effort to fulfill their Secret Santa commitments, they will find themselves unable to buy/sell/trade or participate in any future exchanges.

If last year is any indication, that will only happen to a fraction of 1% of all participants. 99.5% success is pretty amazing, in my opinion. Just one more reason I love this place

To EVERYONE

Unless you are 100% certain that your target has received his/her gifts (in other words, your target has explicitly confirmed/indicated that they've been received) PLEASE hold on to all purchase and shipping receipts and information. In the unfortunate situation that your package was lost by the delivery company I will be asking for that information as a way to confirm that you held up your part of the exchange.

I would like to volunteer for the backup-Santa list, but being out of work at the minute has meant it's been enough strain on the finances getting my actual Secret Santa sent out, let alone an extra one.

Next year, though, God willing, I will play the part of an emergency Santa.

I understand that life gets in the way (heck that's the reason I backed out this year because I knew things would get complicated if I went in). But the person who didn't send anything still GOT something!

I would be prepared to pay the shipping for that person to send what they received on to their intended target. It's not a great excuse and I would hope that there are very few of those. The weird thing is that I have less of a problem with the weasels who just sign up to get free stuff and then disappear. At least we know their slime balls...no excuses. With the "life gets in the way" folks they went in with the intention of giving (and may very well be BGG vets) and have made a conscious choice not to give a gift.

My feeling is this. If you don't give a gift and yet happily received one there should be a suspension of service to BGG...the length determined by the admins.

If you can't afford things there are alternatives. Send something from your collection. Send GG. Send something hand made (e.g., PnP games, etc). I am quite sure that if your target got something from you that took some effort and there was a note that said I'm sorry I can't do more because I lost my job, that would be better than not getting anything.

Is there an option for people who want to help but aren't able to give the full ~$50 needed to buy a gift? Could we have a 'general fund' where cash/Paypal donations of any kind could be given, and then possibly partner with an online game store to use the collected funds to fill some of the orders? This would reduce the number of 'full' volunteers needed to fill in all the gaps, and allow more of us to help out with what we're each able to donate.

Perhaps there's a tax liability or something else here I'm missing, but if we all had the option to chip in a little, could we accomplish more?